"Hey, Stiles. Travelling around with my mom's been fun but super tiring. I'll call when I get a chance. How's everything on the home front? Dad must be busy with work because he hasn't answered my emails lately. Keep him eating healthy and tell him I love him. Sorry I wasn't able to visit this summer, but reconnecting with Abby has been difficult. Hope Scott is keeping you busy. I'm so proud of you, Stiles. Of the life you are leading, taking care of dad, doing well in school, and even playing lacrosse. Have a good week"
Bonnie waited for Jeremy to finish typing. "And just right a 'B'. Stiles will get it."
"Ready?" Stiles heard Deaton address him while he checked his phone once again. He, Scott, and Alison were going to die (and hopefully come back) and he really wanted to talk to Bonnie before it happened just in case something happened and he didn't come back.
"Dude, you okay?" Scott moved closer to his best friend.
"Yeah. I'm fine. I…just let me try Bonnie one more time." The others glanced at each other but could understand Stiles anxiety.
"Who's Bonnie?" Isaac asked Scott, who shook his head as he watched Stiles hang up once again with a frown.
"Sorry Stiles but we have to do this now." Deaton put a hand on the younger man's shoulder.
"I know." He sighed before he took his shoes off like the others and slipped his phone in it. "If I'm out and I get a call, I need someone to answer it."
"No problem." Isaac nodded.
"You all have something belonging to your parents?" Deaton asked. Alison and Scott nodded and explained. When they turned to Stiles, looking for the same explanation he smiled grimly and opened his palm to show a fake Sheriff badge. "Dad got this for me and Bonnie one summer. We'd play Sheriff, taking turns." He cleared his voice, not wanting it to break.
"Who's Bonnie?" Isaac asked once more, knowing it could be the last time he talked to his friend.
"My sister."
"You have a sister?" Lydia exclaimed.
Stiles nodded and smiled bitterly again. "I'll tell you guys about her some time." The words the were unspoken echoed around them. If we survive.
"Ready?" And ice cold water engulfed the three teens.
Stiles awoke in a white room with the tree in the middle. "What the hell." He breathed out.
"Stiles?" He heard a familiar voice…a voice he hadn't heard in some time.
"Bonnie? What are you doing here?"
"What am I doing?" She sputtered. "What are you doing? Are you…dead?"
"No! Well. I am. Kindof. Do you know what is going on?" He said, assuming she was some type of vision.
Bonnie, for the first time, looked around and noticed the tree. She walked past Stiles, brushing shoulders and ran her fingers across the stump of the tree and shivered. "There is great power here, Stiles. What is going on?"
"Dad was taken here. We're trying to find out what it is. What do you mean power? It was cut down?"
"Things that once were can be again." She said cryptically.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Be brave, Stiles. Humanity is your gift." She wasn't ready to leave her brother. Outside of Jeremy, this was the only interaction she's had. it was going to be the last thing her brother would ever here her say to him, even if he would assume she was some type of hallucination. Bonnie could feel her presence fading. "I love you." And she was gone.
"Bonnie?" Jeremy asked seeing his ghost quasi-girlfriend appear again. "Where'd you go?"
Bonnie's eye lit up as she faced Jeremy. "Something is going on with my brother and I intend to find out. Call him."
"What, Bonnie I thought you said-"
"I know what I said. Things change. My family is in danger."
And for the first time in a long time, Jeremy could sense the power rush around Bonnie, despite not being alive. And he could see why people feared the Bennett line because Bonnie looked absolutely terrifying.
He took Bonnie's phone out of the desk in his room in the Boarding House and turned it on. He scrolled through the contacts looking for Stiles' phone number as Bonnie paced.
"What am I supposed to say?"
"Just ask what the hell is going on. I don't care. If my brother or dad are dead, there is going to be hell to pay. I may be dead but my power still exists. My remains were never consecrated." She smiled darkly.
Jeremy shook his head when no one answered. "Call again."
"Hello?" A boy answered the phone.
"Yes, Stiles?" Jeremy asked uncomfortably.
"No. This is his friend, Isaac. He…uh, left his phone at my house. Who is this?" He heard a slight scruffle in the background and some hissing from voices.
"This is Jeremy. I know his sister. She asked me to, hum, talk to Stiles about some…stuff."
"I'll let him know. Is-"
"Jeremy Gilbert!" Jeremy quickly turned off the phone and whipped around, seeing Damon's angry face. He turned to where Bonnie was, but saw she had disappeared. "Who was on the phone?" Damon crossed his arms.
"Bonnie. Just checking in." He lied.
"Liar. Spill."
Stiles' eyes shot open and he coughed, he saw Lydia rush over to him and hand him a towel.
"Stiles are you alright?" He heard Scott and Alison receive the same treatment from Isaac and Deaton.
"I-I….I saw my sister." He said quietly, confused.
"What? Bonnie?"
Stiles, for once in his life, ignored Lydia. "Scott, did you see Bonnie? Scott?"
"What? No. Why?"
"She appeared to me." Stiles shook his head. "She was…different. There was something about her that was dangerous and unlike the Bonnie we know."
"Maybe it was just your mind telling you something. How could your sister be in your head?" Alison asked while shivering.
"She's right." Lydia said uncharacteristically gently. "When the mind is distressed it conjures images that imitate familiarity."
"Bonnie said that 'once was could be again' or something. She was saying the tree could be a powerful again."
"We can contemplate that later. I think I know where the tree is." Scott smiled softly, knowing Stiles was shaken from seeing his sister in the not-living world and the others were shaken by the Darach and the fact that he, Alison and Stiles were just dead for hours.
"Time to find our parents." Alison got up and the others followed.
It was the end of the summer, and Jeremy and Bonnie had successfully kept everyone in the dark about her status of being dead until then.
"Bonnie, Damon knows."
"What, how? Is he going to tell the others?" Bonnie wanted to pull her hair out. Damon couldn't know. Elena and Caroline had only just gone off to college.
"He heard me talking to you. He is a vampire."
"I-I'm not ready yet Jeremy. I'm not ready to be dead."
"Bonnie, it's time."
"You're talking to witchy, Jer?" Damon stalked in with alcohol in hand, as always.
"Can't you knock?" Jeremy scowled.
"Come on roomie, be nice. You owe me. I found a way to bring judgy back to life."
"What?" Jeremy and Bonnie said at the same time, though Damon could only hear the former.
"We trade her. Kill Silas, bring Bonnie back. Everyone is happy." He smirked.
"No. That's making a deal with the devil. We can't trust Silas." When Jeremy didn't repeat her sentiment, or say anything at all, Bonnie looked at him. "Go on, Jer. Tell Damon."
Jeremy glanced at Bonnie before turning to Damon. "She said 'thanks'." He said flatly. He felt bad for lying. Bonnie trusted him, but he felt so guilty that she died so he could live (literally).
"Sure she did." Damon turned and walked out.
"Stiles, you alright?" His dad asked him.
"Yeah, dad." Stiles smiled tiredly. "Just tired. Glad you're back." He didn't want to tell his dad about his not-so-near death experience nor his vision of Bonnie. Deaton, after hearing Scott and Alison's experiences, had agreed with Lydia, that his vision of Bonnie was probably just his subconscious using a family figure to adjust Stiles. There was just something that rubbed him the wrong way about that Bonnie and the weird phone call from Bonnie's friend, 'Jeremy'. He didn't know much about Bonnie's life outside of what she liked to do with him when she knew vaguely of her friends: she had two good girl friends and was friendly with a couple of guys, but he didn't know enough to identify, hell, name them. After he had awoken, he tried Bonnie's phone a few times, but he guessed she and Abbie were out of reception or something.
"Good night Stiles."
"Night dad."
"Love you, son."